Friday, 29 May 2009

Since it's been a while since I made it (We're selling the flat, so I'm avoiding cooking fish), and The Tallest requested it. Here's a quick recipe for my cod with lemon and caper sauce and new potatoes with chilli and cumin:

I've used Cod fillets, but any white fish will do. Baramundi is my prefered choice, but hard to get a hold of in the UK.

Just dust the fillets with some flour and fry in a little olive oil both sides.

To make the sauce: into a small pan: squeeze a lemon, a tablespoon of butter, a tablespoon of capers, some chopped dill or thyme (which ever you prefer, I used thyme this time - haha) and some pepper. Simmer till the butter melts and has reduced a little.

For the potatoes: clean and halve some baby new potatoes, boil til soft in the middle. Drain, and a little olive oil back into the pan with some dried chilli flakes a sprinkling of cumin seeds, thyme and salt and pepper, toss the potatoes in it on a low heat for a couple of minutes and you're done. :)

Wednesday, 27 May 2009

Well, look at that you lucky people. 2 posts in one day! I truly have been kicked up the butt for being slack in posting lately.

Now here is one of my ultimate comfort foods - and stupidly easy and quick to make! My mother made this vermicelli omelette (Froġa tat-Tarja) for me as a child often, and eating it tonight made me feel about 7 years old again (and the fact I put ketchup on it, something my mum always seemed a bit dismayed at). There are plenty of variations on the recipe out there, I've made the most basic here, but you can add your own extra ingredients too. Popular additions in Malta are spinach and corned beef, but you can add chopped ham or tomatoes too and I've been suggested crumbling feta or goats cheese into the mix. It's really up to you.

Apologies for the poor picture quality, my camera batteries went flat, so I had to use my phone camera.

Another Maltese biscuit recipe, this one in particular is my Great Aunt Maria's. It's a typical Maltese sweet since it features cloves, lemon and orange zest – they crop up a lot in desserts.

These are more commonly known as Qaghaq Tal-Gulglien (Sesame Rings), as they traditionally baked in a ring shape, but to honor my aunt, I've made them in a twist like she used to (I find them easier to dunk this way too!).

It all started when Andrew added me on twitter asking for help in his quest of Maltese food for the Eating Eurovision '09 challenge – where "25 food bloggers eat the cuisine of the 25 Eurovision finalists in 25 hours all within the M25".

Malta, more famous for its beaches than its cuisine, proved to be a bit of a tough one to source in London. Even the Maltese themselves find it hard, with only very limited suppliers of food from back home available and none at all of certain products.

I was more than honored that Andrew asked for my help and jumped at it, trying to point him in the direction of others who could source Kinnie and pastizzi for him (a native soft drink and pastry snack) and agreed to let him borrow the only Maltese cookbook I could find in the UK that was in English.

What really surprised me was that he asked to interview me. I raced home to grab the book and finding a spare half an hour on my hands decided to make him pastini tal-coconut – a sweet coconut pastry. He has kindly reproduced the recipe on his blog here.

Here it is again, with step-by-step photographs:

Pastini Tal-Coconut (Coconut Pastries)

Makes roughly 4 dozen (in the photos I have halved the amounts)

250g plain white flour250g butter (unsalted or salted is up to you, I like using salted since it gives that lovely salted caramel taste)250g sugar (normally white, but I prefer brown)500g desiccated coconuta few drops of vanilla essence4 eggsGlacé cherries and/or almonds for decoration

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees centigrade.

2. Rub the flour and butter together until it resembles breadcrumbs.

3. Mix in the sugar and coconut.

4. Add the vanilla essence and whisk the eggs into the mixture, working it through all the dry ingredients. It might seem a small amount of egg, but once it's thoroughly mixed through it should resemble cookie dough.

5. Take about a heaped tablespoon and roll into balls.

6. Set out onto baking sheets, decorate with glacé cherries or almonds and bake for 10-15 minutes. Allow to cool a little before serving, makes a fantastic tea-time treat.

What's all this about?

Welcome to Did You Put Garlic?, for origin behind the name, please look up the first post. Otherwise, feel free to use the (mainly Maltese) recipes. If you have any suggestions please drop me a comment.
All the material on this blog is my copyright. Please contact me if you would like to use it.